Afghanistan: The CIA's Biggest War

February 16, 1989 http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.... Watch the full interview: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/08/john-stockwell-on-cias-biggest-wa...

The Soviet War in Afghanistan, also known as the Soviet-Afghan War, was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan at their own request, against the Islamist Mujahideen Resistance.

The Afghan government was also supported by India, while the mujahideen found other support from a variety of sources including the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other Muslim nations through the context of the Cold War and the regional India-Pakistan conflict.

The initial Soviet deployment of the 40th Army in Afghanistan began on December 24, 1979 under the leadership of Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev. The final troop withdrawal started on May 15, 1988, and ended on February 15, 1989 under the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Due to the interminable nature of the war, the conflict in Afghanistan has often been referred to as the Soviets' Vietnam; in relation to the Vietnam War.

Afghanistan is, as of March, 2008, the greatest illicit (in Western World standards) opium producer in the world, before Burma (Myanmar), part of the so-called "Golden Crescent". Opium production in Afghanistan has been on the rise since the downfall of the Taliban in 2001. Based on UNODC data, there has been more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons (2004-2007), than in any one year during Taliban rule. Also, more land is now used for opium in Afghanistan, than for coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 93% of the opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan. This amounts to an export value of about $4 billion, with a quarter being earned by opium farmers and the rest going to district officials, insurgents, warlords and drug traffickers. In the seven years (1994-2000) prior to a Taliban opium ban, the Afghan farmers' share of gross income from opium was divided among 200,000 families.

One of the American intelligence community's biggest operations and initially considered a major success was the funding of the Mujahedeen (Islamist fighters) in Afghanistan and their training, arming, and supplying. The program was initiated under President Jimmy Carter and greatly expanded following the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979. Under Reagan funding reached levels of $600 million/year.

Roger Morris, writing in the Asia Times, states that in April 1978, the crackdown by the regime of Daoud on Afghanistan's small Communist Party provoked a successful coup by Communist Party loyalists in the army. The coup occurred in defiance of a skittish Moscow, which had stopped earlier coup plans.

According to Morris, by autumn 1978, an Islamic insurgency, armed and planned by the U.S., Pakistan, Iran and China, and soon to be actively supported, at Washington's prodding, by the Saudis and Egyptians, was fighting in eastern Afghanistan. U.S. planners continued funding the radical Islamic insurgency to "suck" the Russians into Afghanistan.

The Afghans were supported by a number of other countries, with the US and Saudi Arabia offering the greatest financial support. However, the Afghans were also aided by others: the UK, Egypt, China, Iran, and Pakistan. Ground support, for political reasons, was limited to regional countries.

The United States began training insurgents in, and directing propaganda broadcasts into Afghanistan from Pakistan in 1978. Then, in early 1979, U.S. foreign service officers began meeting insurgent leaders to determine their needs. According to the then US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, CIA aid to the insurgents within Afghanistan was approved in July 1979, six months before the Soviet Invasion.

United States President Jimmy Carter insisted that what he termed "Soviet aggression" could not be viewed as an isolated event of limited geographical importance but had to be contested as a potential threat to US influence in the Persian Gulf region. The US was also worried about the USSR gaining access to the Indian Ocean by coming to an arrangement with Pakistan.

After the Soviet deployment, Pakistan's military ruler General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq started accepting financial aid from the Western powers to aid the mujahideen. In 1981, following the election of US President Ronald Reagan, aid for the mujahideen through Zia's Pakistan significantly increased, mostly due to the efforts of Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson and CIA officer Gust Avrakotos.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• CIA
• John
• Stockwell
• secret
• wars
• George
• Bush
• Ronald
• Reagan
• administration
• cold
• war
• Russian
• Afghanistan
• labor
• party
• covert
• operations
• peace
• victories
• Angola
• Nicaragua
• El
• Salvador
• hot
• spot
• Kampuchea
• Vietnamese
• cynicism
• contra
• aid
• Reaganomics
• debt
• conflicts
• money
• lives
• energy
• congress
• debates
• rally
• Time
• Newsweek
• Sudan
• Chad
• power
• Gaddafi
• Libya
• Afghan
• heroin
• smuggling
• ring
• Vietnam
• army
• Laos
• air
• force
• bombing
• rebels
• Lebanon
• groups
• Pakistan
• funding
• arms
• debate
• professor
• world
• affairs
• VOA
• violence

[nowellian]

This video would not play!

[thefilmarchive]

Try again. It works for me.

[POBulkhead]

My Real American Hero! I wish he lived long enough for me to send him at thank you letter. Good American.

[1wiganer]

Works fine for me, thanks for sharing, very interesting...

[TheSovietSuperpower]

@POBulkhead That POS was not a hero to anyone but the very people you are fighting now. Reagan's administration was desperate for a victory, and as such funded the muhajideen with Guns, Donkeys, Money, and Stinger Missiles. Reagan was a straight up dumb-ass.

[prrolg]

8:22 "What the powers have done is condemned Afghanistan to eternal violence and conflict". Very prescient. What is Pres Obama doing there now and more importantly what will he leave?

[Talshet]

@POBulkhead What to do?Are you brainwashed?America supported terrorists. That means America is bunch of terrorists. CIA is the biggest terrorism organisation in the world supported from a whole goverment, that means your the only country on earth who is terroris the whole world.I hope someone is insane enough to destroy your country with your own nuclear weapons.

[Talshet]

Americans support terrorists, that means who support terrorists are terrorists.

[Deepred67]

@fishman017 shill

[Flankymanga]

8:25 by the time this video was made, he didn't knew how right he was...

[fishman017]

His opening assessment that the Cold War was not going to end anytime soon was wildly inaccurate, take that for what it's worth. Yeah, he was inside the Agency, but I think he is really an opportunist more concerned in advancing his writing and lecturing career than actually securing American interests. Covert actions are laden with inconsistencies and hypocrisies, that's the way it works. His apparent indignation is either feigned or totally naive. Either way, I discount most of what he says.